Page 10 of Blackwicket

“I won’t condemn others to death for money. It’ll only end up with the Brom, and they don’t need any assistance in the death department.”

“That sounded like Isolde Blackwicket talking.” He shook his head, rueful.

“Why are you here?” I asked, exasperated, using my foot to shove the Galton’s regalia closer to the magical fire.

“Can’t a father just want to visit his little girl?”

“No. That wouldn’t explain why you broke into my apartment to pack everything, or why you were at Galton’s waiting for me. It’s been ten years. I’m surprised you even remembered what I look like.”

He glanced at me briefly.

“Couldn’t forget that. You’ve got your mother’s face.”

He was dodging, trying to turn the conversation. But I couldn’t stand around and play these pointless games. Neither the Authority nor the Brom would be satisfied when they found my apartment deserted. I made a sound of impatient disgust as I stalked to my belongings, fetching the pocketbook and closing the carpet bag’s hinged frame with a snap.

“Good, you’re ready,” Darren said. “I’m surprised no one’sguessed where you are yet. I’ll bring the food. You should eat. You’re still a little pale.”

He motioned vaguely around his face.

“You’re not coming with me.” I lifted the bags. “You’ve seen me. Now let’s say our goodbyes for another ten years.”

“Truth is.” He stood, intercepting me at the door, “I’ve come to take you home.”

Home.

I gave a harsh bark of laughter directly in his face.

“In a body bag? Because that’s the only way anyone will ever get me back there.”

“Eleanora.”

My father’s voice was heavy, filled with something terrible.

“Fiona’s dead,” he confessed softly.

Reality shifted, closing in to suffocate me before expanding, stretching into a vast, black nothing with me in the center. There was a ringing in my ears, growing louder, engulfing me in its high scream. Something moved in my periphery, the retreating head of a girl, blond curls bouncing, step light and carefree. She faded, becoming gloom, reappearing as her older self, tall and lean, already beautiful with a smile that invited love but received only pain. Ghostlike, she moved through me, and I turned to find we stood shoulder to shoulder at the entrance of that house. She was a young woman now, eighteen, quiet and sad, watching the retreating form of her sister as I left for good. The burdens of her life had already etched themselves on her features, making her even more striking. In the space of a heartbeat, my sister’s phantom became the woman I’d seen a few short months ago, when she’d finally answered one of my letters and met me at a café on the outskirts of Devin, only to tell me to stop writing, to forget her, and to never come home.

Live your own life and let me live mine, Eleanora.

Her voice echoed in my ears as she closed the door, separating us forever.

Memories dissolved, leaving only misery behind.

“You’re lying,” I said, voice hollow.

“Not about this.” Darren’s eyes were misty with difficult emotions.

“How?”

“She went too far, Cricket. Got mixed up in stuff even I wouldn’t touch.”

It wasn’t true. Not the timid girl, sweet as spun sugar and just as delicate, who flinched at thunder, and always spoke kindly to those most likely to spit on us in town or call the Authority to report magic use despite my mother’s license.

“It’s not their fault, Ellie,” Fiona had whispered at night, both of us unable to sleep. “What we can do, most people forgot how to. It hurts them too much to remember.”

Darren’s sadness spilled onto his cheek, and he swiped at it, self-conscious.

“You have to come home, Eleanora,” he said. “She wanted you to come home.”